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A review by shoutaboutbooks
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
5.0
What an utterly flawless book this is.
Like fingers pressing into a bruise, pain, mellowed by the passing of time, seeps from every page of this beautiful debut. When Martha is 17, she experiences an inexplicable mental break that reverberates across the rest of her life. She is chronically misdiagnosed and prescribed a litany of ineffective treatments. As the years march relentlessly forward and her relationships suffer under the strain of her health, she loses faith that she will ever be 'normal': that she will ever be a good wife, a good mother, a good person.
There's much to adore in Martha's journey. Meg Mason's study of family, certainly imperfect yet with an unlimited capacity for love, patience, sacrifice and forgiveness, is complex and quietly aspirational. Central to this is the theme of motherhood. Martha's relationship with her own mother is fractious, and her closeness with her sister withers as Ingrid becomes a mother herself. The loathing and longing is a tragically relatable conflict, immaculately explored between the three of them.
At about a third of the way through, I was feeling mad at myself for having this book waiting on the shelf for so long. But then I realised that now, when I often find myself feeling lonely, feeling hopeless, feeling empty, was the perfect moment for the solace and the embrace of these pages.
From her own prose, Mason describes the experience of reading this book far better than I have:
'The sensation of it was physical, like warm water being washed over a wound, agonising and cleansing and curative.'
This book had me crying soft tears for the loss of safe havens, for eight million lonely people, for the small ways we all disappear throughout our lives. From its self-resigned sadness radiates the most tender love and nostalgia, full of yearning, despair, forgiveness and hope. Truly it is sorrow and bliss.
Like fingers pressing into a bruise, pain, mellowed by the passing of time, seeps from every page of this beautiful debut. When Martha is 17, she experiences an inexplicable mental break that reverberates across the rest of her life. She is chronically misdiagnosed and prescribed a litany of ineffective treatments. As the years march relentlessly forward and her relationships suffer under the strain of her health, she loses faith that she will ever be 'normal': that she will ever be a good wife, a good mother, a good person.
There's much to adore in Martha's journey. Meg Mason's study of family, certainly imperfect yet with an unlimited capacity for love, patience, sacrifice and forgiveness, is complex and quietly aspirational. Central to this is the theme of motherhood. Martha's relationship with her own mother is fractious, and her closeness with her sister withers as Ingrid becomes a mother herself. The loathing and longing is a tragically relatable conflict, immaculately explored between the three of them.
At about a third of the way through, I was feeling mad at myself for having this book waiting on the shelf for so long. But then I realised that now, when I often find myself feeling lonely, feeling hopeless, feeling empty, was the perfect moment for the solace and the embrace of these pages.
From her own prose, Mason describes the experience of reading this book far better than I have:
'The sensation of it was physical, like warm water being washed over a wound, agonising and cleansing and curative.'
This book had me crying soft tears for the loss of safe havens, for eight million lonely people, for the small ways we all disappear throughout our lives. From its self-resigned sadness radiates the most tender love and nostalgia, full of yearning, despair, forgiveness and hope. Truly it is sorrow and bliss.